Pictured: Rand, the best person on this plane. Also pictured: Dude in headphones who screamed when people got too close to him.

I have this terrible habit of assuming that most people are generally good, contributing members of society, and not bat-shit barely-functioning assholes. Every now and then we may deviate from this norm (I once woke up angry with Rand because he’d done something to piss me off in a dream) but for the most part we adhere to a social contract that requires us to at least pretend that we’re simply scratching our nose when we are actually digging around for boogers.

And while I have seen all manner of weird things while on the road, I can safely say that nothing compares to what I saw on the Southwest flight that Rand and I took from Albuquerque to San Diego.

Generally, I don’t fly Southwest because I don’t hate myself. I fly Alaska Airlines, and the delta (ha!) between the two airlines is the same one that exists between Donald Trump and Obama: on some level, these two things are fundamentally the same (men who have held the office of president; commercial airlines) – but seriously, fuck no. No way. These things are not the same. One will get you where you need to go and the other is probably going to get us all killed OH GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

Ahem.

Anyway, Alaska’s big flaw is that they don’t really operate anywhere but the Pacific Northwest. Outside of the west coast, everyone assumes flying Alaska Air means you are from Alaska. They inevitably start asking questions, and I’m too embarrassed to admit I’m from Seattle so I just say things like “YES PENGUIN MEAT IS DELICIOUS”.

For those of you who are itching to point out that there are no penguins in Alaska: that is not the biggest problem you should have with that sentence.

ANYWAY.

Southwest does not have assigned seating. I mean, I’ve been to movie theaters that have assigned seating. It the cornerstone of any functioning society. It is what separates us from the Italians. Remove it, and people start strangling one another for free t-shirts. I’ve seen it.

Instead, Southwest is a fucking free-for-all. First come, first served. And that is where I think the root of all appalling behavior on Southwest flights originates.

Rand paid extra to have us board in an early group, because Southwest isn’t going to let its running-of-the-bulls-but-with-children-and-old-people-and-carry-ons seating structure stop them from having a social hierarchy.

I should note that the crew was actually lovely. But they are still part of this evil empire so I blame them, too. Sometimes the devil brings you ginger ale.

We boarded, and the crew announced that there was plenty of room on this flight, which meant that everyone became Gollum, screaming “MY PRECIOUS” while lying across an entire row. I’ve seen this tactic before.

Other people go the more passive aggressive route: they wear paper masks over their faces, despite showing no discernible signs of illness, to frighten away hypochondriacs.

Or they just act like assholes, which seemed to be the school of thought that most of the people on this flight adhered to.

We boarded, and as Rand was graciously putting my carry-on in the overhead, I guess he took a second too long to do it, because some woman passed him and said haughtily, “Uh, they check bags for free.”

OH SHIT, REALLY, LADY? THEY DO? Sorry I’m not fucking up to speed on Southwest’s amenities, but since they can’t even get seating right DO YOU REALLY THINK I’M GOING TO CHECK MY BAG SO THEY CAN SEND IT TO A DUMPSTER ON WHICH SOMEONE HAS HASTILY SPRAY-PAINTED THE LETTERS “SFO”?

I wanted to hurl myself at her like a cat thrown from a car. Instead, I restrained myself. For that, I deserved a cookie, which, like social contracts, is something else that Southwest does not have.

The problem with Rand is that when there is a fight for limited resources he is not strategic at all. He will absolutely not push over an octogenarian for a free sandwich, and that is why he will never get ahead in life or on a Southwest flight.

(Sorry. I don’t actually believe this. It’s the airline talking.)

Rand pointed to aisle and middle seat that were free, but taking a middle seat on a non-full Southwest Airlines flight is basically asking to get shivved.

By the time I realized that wasn’t going to work, the nearest seat available to me was an aisle seat a few rows back. There was a woman already in this row, seated by the window. She’d pulled the tray table for the middle seat down – a subtle way of saying “back the fuck up” – and glared at me as I sat down. Over the course of the flight, she proceeded to eat numerous hard-boiled eggs with her bare fingers. I hate her.

Opposite me was seated the asshole in headphones pictured above.

I call him an asshole because when another another passenger asked if they could take the window seat, this guy yelled, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE ENTIRE PLANE IS EMPTY.” He then refused to move, but the other passenger just stood there, calmly waiting, and finally the guy stood up, visibly pissed, and let him take the window. He then mumbled a bunch of unrepeatable things under his breath.

And while I think there is a special circle of hell for all of these people, it does not compare to the gentleman who was seated across the aisle from me and one row back.

His actions made me question whether or not I was hallucinating. I thought my club soda had been drugged.

Roughly halfway through the flight, I heard a metallic clicking sound.

*CLICK*CLICK*CLICK*

I furrowed my brow. I knew that sound. But … no. No way. I turned, trying to identify the source.

And then I found it.

HE WAS CLIPPING HIS FINGERNAILS. I kid you not. They were flying everywhere like some unholy confetti. There is never a time in which that many pieces of genetic material should be airborne.

There are so many questions that I wanted to ask him.

What is wrong with you?

Are you actually an alien who is pretending to be human, and failing in the endeavor?

Why didn’t you do this in the bathroom? OR AT HOME?

You’re going to pick that shit up when you’re done, right?

What is wrong with you?

Is this your first time on a plane? And around other humans?

No, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Alas, only one of these was answered. When he was done, HE. SWEPT. HIS. FINGERNAILS. ON. TO. THE. GROUND.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE ASSIGNED SEATING. Everyone has an “it’s me or them” mentality that extends to the entire flight. *I* want to sit here. *I* want to be an asshole. *I* do not give a fuck that other people exist.

I stared, disbelieving. I looked around, to see if anyone else was appalled. Rand was asleep and rows ahead. Asshole dude was watching some video, oblivious to his surroundings. Hard-boiled egg woman was … holy shit, where did she get more eggs?

No. I was the only one who witnessed it. On Southwest, no one can hear you scream.

]]>http://www.everywhereist.com/the-10th-circle-of-hell-is-southwest-airlines/feed/58Rule #2 of Vaginas: Don’t Glue Them Shuthttp://www.everywhereist.com/rule-2-of-vaginas-dont-glue-them-shut/
http://www.everywhereist.com/rule-2-of-vaginas-dont-glue-them-shut/#commentsThu, 23 Feb 2017 02:33:05 +0000http://www.everywhereist.com/?p=14529By now, you may have heard about a dear-god-I-wish-it-was-fake story that’s been floating around the internet, about a vaginal glue designed to keep labia sealed together during menstruation.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Wait, there’s glue made especially for vaginas? I’ve jut been using whatever I had lying around the house!

Just kidding, what you are actually thinking is something along the lines of What in the holy hell is going on this is fucking satanic no no no glue does not belong anywhere near my vaginal opening are you fucking kidding me dear god no.

The labia-glue’s creator is a Wichita-based chiropractor named Daniel Dopps, a man who lacks a vagina as well as basic of understanding of human anatomy (related: this does not bode well for the chiropractic community at large). Mr. Dopps – and you’ll notice I use the term “mister” and not “doctor” because HE IS NOT ONE- is the CEO and creator of the “lip-stick glue” as well as countless untold nightmares.

He has named his product “Mensez”, completely failing to see the utter hilarity of a dude making a product that no one who actually menstruates would want, and then calling it MEN SEZ.

The theory behind his “product” is that if labia are glued together then … honestly, I have no fucking clue. I don’t actually think there’s a theory here. As far as I can tell, this is just an elaborate prank by internet trolls and possibly the ghost of Maquis de Sade. But Dopps believes that instead of leaving our vaginas unglued, as they have been since human vaginas have first existed, we should glue them together. This will somehow create a leak-proof seal and negates the need for sanitary napkins or tampons.

The official Mensez website does not instill much confidence in me regarding the product’s efficacy or safety. It is also riddled with typos, and they’ve managed to misspell a five-letter-long word.

It sounds like a pretty terrible idea, though admittedly I can’t say that with any firsthand knowledge because neither I nor anyone I know has been stupid enough to glue their vaginas shut.

The labial glue dissolves in urine, which would make slightly more sense if the urethra and the vagina were the same thing, WHICH THEY ARE NOT. I thought most of us figured this out in the fifth grade, but apparently not.

While answering the many, many, many questions on his company’s hacked-and-presently-disabled Facebook page, Dopps dropped this gem:

“You as a woman should have come up with a better solution than diapers and plugs, but you didn’t.”

Okay, wow. Where to begin.

Tampons are not “plugs”.

Menstrual pads are not “diapers”.

Glue is not a “better solution.”

I know, I know! All of this is confusing, so I’ve made a flowchart that we can easily reference should we need to.

Now, I realize that most people are going to look at this product, note that it’s fucking insane, and have that be the end of it. But the problem isn’t just that Dopps made a faulty, unhealthy, utterly barbaric product. It’s that he has no idea. It’s not just that he doesn’t understand female anatomy – it’s that he and countless others like him feel that they are an authority on women’s bodies.

As my friend Charles brilliantly puts it, this is mansplaining at its finest.

Y’all… Imagine a team of the best scientists created a lab to produce the most egregiously mansplaining incident imaginable… (thread)

And let’s be clear – this isn’t just a brainstorming session. This is an actual viable product that exists and HAS A PATENT. Now, if any other group besides menstruating women was targeted with a body glue, do you think it would fly? Imagine someone pitching a cure for diarrhea that involved gluing your anus shut.

Actually, nevermind, don’t.

At a time when women are still – still! – fighting for autonomy over their bodies, when the state of Oklahoma is trying to pass a law where all abortions must be approved by men because women are simply “the hosts” of a fetus, when the fucking President of the United States has bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, my patience for misogynistic batshittery is at an all-time low.

The first rule of vaginas is a simple one: If it’s not yours, and you don’t have explicit permission to touch it, leave it the fuck alone.

The second rule? Don’t glue your labia together. Ever.

]]>http://www.everywhereist.com/rule-2-of-vaginas-dont-glue-them-shut/feed/2The Plight of Being A Vegetarian While Traveling in Spainhttp://www.everywhereist.com/the-plight-of-being-a-vegetarian-while-traveling-in-spain/
http://www.everywhereist.com/the-plight-of-being-a-vegetarian-while-traveling-in-spain/#commentsWed, 10 Aug 2016 19:40:00 +0000http://www.everywhereist.com/?p=14018

Ham. Ham, everywhere.

Dear Spain,

I like you. I truly do. You’re like Italy, but less mafioso-y. I begrudgingly appreciate how entire cities will shut down so that people can take naps. It’s absolute bullshit, and really annoying for tourists, but y’all are like, “FUCK IT! It’s 1pm. Let’s eat paella for 3 hours.” It’s hard not to be impressed with that level of impracticality. I, too, am weirdly committed to rice.

You have a bazillion types of ham, priced according to how much the pig in question seemed to appreciate the works of Cervantes. You came up with the idea of sangria. You gave us Javier Bardem and Antonio Banderas and Julio-Effing-Iglesias.

You also gave us the Spanish Inquisition, but I’m trying to focus on the good.

The point is, Spain, I can totally get behind you on a lot of stuff, and even excuse some of the batshit crazy things you do (like, seriously, chill out with the mayonnaise. There, I said it). But there is one thing that kept coming up, and it’s absolutely bullshit, and normally I wouldn’t give a shit except for Clayton.

Can we talk about Clayton?

Here he is with Rand at the Alhambra:

He’s quite adorable. Every time I tried to take a picture of him he kind of froze up and got a case of something I affectionately call “constipation face”, and I understand because I do that, too. Constipation face is a global epidemic that no one wants to talk about. We just scream, “LOOK NATURAL,” which, like screaming “RELAX” results in precisely the opposite reaction of what we are seeking. But look how cute he is when he doesn’t know he’s being photographed:

Clayton, at right, with his husband Rob, and yes, they look alike, and yes, they’ve heard it all before.

Now, under normal circumstances I would not be worried about this enormous tattooed gay muscle muffin. He can clearly take care of himself and fell entire forests while in the company of Babe, his Giant Blue Ox. But here’s the thing: Clayton is Canadian.

Have you ever been to Canada? It’s the most polite and unobtrusive country in the entire world. It’s like a giant Minnesota. Where apologizing is a national sport. Where people are so well-mannered that you think you might be hallucinating. Where someone once held a door open for me and then said they were sorry afterwards.

And here’s where the problem arose: Clayton is Canadian, and a vegan. Bless his crazy, protein-deprived heart. He realized that in Spain, this essentially equates to starving (even the water has cheese in it), so he downgraded this to just vegetarianism while we were there. He was compromising. He was being flexible.

This is where you let us down, Spain. Well, not us. (I love ham.) But this is where you let Clayton down, Spain.

Because we went to countless restaurants – tapas bars and cafes and places that were well reviewed – and at most, there was one, maybe two items that Clayton could eat. I don’t mean entrees – I mean actual items.

Have you ever seen a 200+ pound man nibble of a crust of bread and some tomato slices while on the verge of collapsing from low blood sugar? It’s really funny but also sad. Like a sedated panda.

In our determination to not let him starve (and rest assured, in every single one of these photos, Clayton is starving), we looked up a few places that were recommended by vegetarians. One night, we even splurged and went to a gorgeous rooftop restaurant, and beforehand let the staff know that we had one vegetarian in our midst. That won’t be a problem, they told us.

When we arrived, I mentioned it again, and the server nodded – it wouldn’t be a problem, he said.

“He eats fish, right?”

“What? NO. He’s a vegetarian. He doesn’t eat meat of any kind.”

“Ah, then we don’t have anything for him.”

This happened again and again. Because in Spain, “vegetarian” somehow means you eat fish. Now, as my eating habits and physique will clearly attest, I am no expert on vegetables, but I am pretty fucking sure that salmon isn’t one. Plants grow in the ground, by mechanisms that I’m entirely unclear on (something to do with compost?), and fish can be found in the sea and, if you are in Spain, IN EVERY FUCKING DISH ON THE MENU THAT IS LABELED “VEGETARIAN”.

(Apparently the phrase for an actual vegetarian in Spain is “vegetariano estricto”. All of this is theoretical, of course, because there are no vegetariano estrictos in Spain. They all starved or moved to London.)

“We can make him some risotto,” the waiter said. That was basically what Clayton ate for nearly two weeks. Risotto. Crust of bread. Wait, no, sorry. Not that bread. That bread is actually made of ham.

Oh, and guess what? Clayton doesn’t like risotto.

Clayton, staring at rocks, wondering if that’s what we’re going to force him to eat that evening.

Honestly, we should have left that restaurant then and there. We should have left all of those restaurants then and there. We didn’t. Most of the time, three out of four of us had a nice meal. And that’s just a shitty percentage. That’s our fault.

The problem was we had no idea that Clayton was miserable half the time, because he’s so fucking polite. See, Rand and I are Americans. If we go to a restaurant and there’s nothing there that’s acceptable, we leave, but not before flipping over a few tables, dousing them with gasoline, and running around in circles with a match while screaming Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” That is how we gently communicate our displeasure at being inconvenienced.

For fuck’s sake, a major plot point in our country’s fight for independence involves tea. We are not afraid to lose our shit in the name of sustenance.

It wasn’t until Clayton’s husband, Rob (also giant, also tattooed, hunky, polite and Canadian because God is real) let us know that Clayton was having a hard time. Three courses in at dinner one night, he gently informed us. And we realized that most of the time, they were just too polite to make their unhappiness known in a way that we Americans could understand. By the time we caught on, it was too late.

A happy moment before we talked to the waiter and realized that one of us was going to starve.

Later, Clayton would say that he wanted other people to realize that vegetarianism is a viable option. Even if it was just once a month, or once a week. He needed to show them how happy he was – and he couldn’t do that by feeling or being miserable because there wasn’t anything for him to eat. He’s so committed to his cause, he didn’t even complain.

I’m so sorry, Clayton. You deserved better. You deserve sweeping smorgasbords of lentils and falafel and whatever the hell tempeh is. You deserve cookies made with flaxseed eggs and coconut oil. And while I’ve uttered those exact sentences as a threat to people in the past, I say them to you with utmost affection. I hope you never go hungry again.

So I realize that we were part of the problem, Spain, but you also somehow think that turbot is a plant, so a lot of this is on you, too. You need to understand that there are people out there who are, well, good. Really good. They care about animals and the planet and about other humans. And when they have decided to live their life with a commitment to that, you cannot say, “Great, here’s a fish. Its name was Javier and it probably had feelings and a family. ENJOY.”

We need to make those people are happy, because they are really good people. We need to make sure they’ve gotten enough ethically-sourced food to eat. Especially if they are 6-feet tall and mostly made of slow-twitch muscle fibers.

Eating candy underneath a dental clinic sign. As one does.

In anticipation of seeing Clayton again, I’m reading up on how to make lavender and cardamom cupcakes without animal products. You can step up, too, Spain. We did our research, and you let us down. You need to understand that if something can wiggle around and swim away from you and has eyes that IT IS NOT A VEGETABLE. If you don’t want to cater to vegetarians, then say that. Stop pretending that you have options for them because there’s sardines on the menu.

I don’t mean my order – I love ham. But you know, consider having some options for the good people out there. For people like Clayton.

]]>http://www.everywhereist.com/the-plight-of-being-a-vegetarian-while-traveling-in-spain/feed/26A Response to the White Woman Who Thinks She’s Progressive for Having a Black Son-in-Lawhttp://www.everywhereist.com/a-response-to-the-white-woman-who-thinks-shes-progressive-for-having-a-black-son-in-law/
http://www.everywhereist.com/a-response-to-the-white-woman-who-thinks-shes-progressive-for-having-a-black-son-in-law/#commentsTue, 09 Aug 2016 22:56:08 +0000http://www.everywhereist.com/?p=14013Happy Tuesday, everyone! Have you been on the internet recently? If not, let me sum up the entirety of it for you:

Trump, like, ate a baby or something. His constituents are thrilled, because they’re pretty sure the baby was a radical.

The Olympics are showcasing the miraculous things humans can do, even if they have the misfortune of being born women. Seriously, the coverage is so damn sexist that I’m pretty sure that NBC’s announcers are like, 2 seconds away from describing the female weightlifters as “little ladies.” Help us, Leslie Jones. You’re our only hope.

(I am watching this on repeat because it makes me feel better about everything.)

Oh, and a piece of crap article has recently gone viral, as they so often do. The writer is a woman who is filled with God’s love and also possibly methamphetamines. Let’s talk about that last one, because it is currently making me the stabbiest.

This is actually something that someone willingly wrote, presumably not under torture. I can only assume that there are other pieces in this series, including:

“When God Sends You a … I Think She Might be Pakistani or Maybe Indian? Hairdresser.”

“When God Sends You a Jewish Lawyer (You Say ‘Thank You!’)”

“When God Sends You an Italian Cleaning Lady and You Are Pretty Sure She’s Stealing But You Can’t Get Her Deported Because She’s a Citizen Which Doesn’t Make Sense Because She’s Italian.”

“When God Sends Your Neighbor A Chinese Baby.”

“When Satan Sends Your Husband a Gay Boyfriend.”

Now, I didn’t really want to read this article, because life is short and I’d rather spend it doing virtually anything else, but my family taught me long ago that you can’t truly destroy someone without knowing them. So I read the entire thing, while wincing and sending a play-by-play account of it to my friend Marika (subject of my future article, “When God Sends You a Girlfriend Who Will Fuck Shit Up When Shit Needs Fucking Up.”)
Here’s my email to Marika:

OMG. God “called her bluff” by sending her daughter a black man. “You think you like black people but what happens when the call is coming from INSIDE YOUR DAUGHTER’S VAGINA? AUUUUGGGHHHH!” – God

Is … is she actually talking him up in a way that suggests that the good things about him are surprising, given his dreads and blackness? Like, “He’s black, but look! He holds doors open for her. WHO KNEW BLACK MEN HAD MANNERS.”

I want to punch this woman in the esophagus.

I’m now just going to pull quotes from this piece of digital crap and scream about them in all caps.

“Glenn moved from being a black man to beloved son when I saw his true identity as … a fellow heir to God’s promises”

WHY DID HE NEED TO “MOVE” FROM BEING A BLACK MAN IN ORDER TO DO THAT? Honestly, she’s so fucking proud of herself for being able to ignore this man’s racial identity, as though being black is antithetical to being a good person.

“loving her well means not only permitting an interracial marriage but also celebrating it.”

Wait, wait, wait. Is there actually a fucking reality where she thinks she could NOT “permit” an interracial marriage?

“Calling Uncle Fred a bigot because he doesn’t want your daughter in an interracial marriage dehumanizes him and doesn’t help your daughter either.”

Actually, it sounds like a great idea, because Uncle Fred is a bigot and I suspect cutting him off might teach him something. Also, I can think of lots of ways in which it would TOTALLY FUCKING HELP YOUR DAUGHTER TO CUT OFF BIGOTS WHO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH HER HUSBAND.

“Several people asked Anna and Glenn, “Which world will you live in—black or white?””

I need to know where these people live. I feel like the answer will be “1963.”

I … I don’t even know what to do with myself. The worst part is that I think she genuinely thinks she’s being progressive. I look forward to Glenn’s follow-up article, “What to do When God Sends You A Racist Mother In Law”

Marika’s response was delightful:

Also…could I just interject something here about Anna that confuses me, being a non-godly semi-atheist with Buddhist tendencies?

“He loves Jesus, Mom. That’s it. That’s my wish list. Jesus lover.”

Not even…”I hope he’s nice” or “May his dong be filled with righteousness” or “I want a guy with a Trans Am.” Just… JESUS LOVER. Is it me or is that just like… pretty BASIC? There are billions of people who love Jesus, no? She got a Starbucks coffee and the barista was like “I love Jesus!” and she was all “MARRY ME!” Sorry, Anna, to throw you under the bus. Maybe her mom was minimizing and Anna actually said “It’s really awesome he’s so cute and owns a house and treats me good and has a dong filled with righteous Christ milk, right Mom?” or whatever.

YES, MARIKA, YES.

The premise of this article is fucking terrifying. This is a woman who is trying to deal with the idea that her daughter’s husband is black. That is literally the entirety of the mental obstacle she had to overcome and for the record REALIZING THAT SOMEONE IS SIMULTANEOUSLY BLACK AND A GOOD PERSON SHOULD NOT BE A MENTAL OBSTACLE FOR ANYONE. And ignoring or overcoming someone’s racial identity is fucked up for lots of reasons. It suggests that there is something that you need to ignore or overcome. It robs the other person of a key part of their identity, it prevents you from truly being empathetic to their experiences. To quote the awesome Hari Kondabolu, “If you don’t see race then you don’t see racism, and what good are you?”

Overlooking someone’s race because they share the same value system as you doesn’t make you open-minded – it makes you a bigot. And not even a very self-aware bigot.

And the author didn’t just have these thoughts, she felt the need to write them down for the entire world. Because she sincerely thought that her words were kind and enlightened and progressive. That her ideas were nuanced and important and that someone could learn something from them. But honestly, the only thing anyone needs to learn from this is that bigots are out there, and they haven’t got the faintest clue that they’re bigots.

There is this idea that keeps coming up in the travel writing community, that quitting your job to travel the world is a profoundly brave thing. You aren’t settling for life in a soulless cubicle. You are grabbing life by the pubic hairs and screaming the guttural war cry that Neanderthals uttered before they went on the hunt for – I don’t know – dinosaurs? (I suck at history.) You are the human embodiment of a 90s-era Mountain Dew commercial that involves lots of neon and extreme sports and six-packs of both varieties. You are actually living life (because worrying about paychecks and mortgages are for the weak).

(Insert some quote from J.R.R. Tolkien here.)

I have problems with this mentality. A lot of them.

It’s not that I don’t think travel is a brave act. I do. I’ve met travelers with extreme mobility issues, who use wheelchairs or can’t stand for extended periods of time, or have chronic medical conditions that require them to stay close to home. I’ve met women, and people in the LGBTQ community, and people of color (and people who fall into all of those categories) who travel in parts of the world that are historically hostile to them (and yes, this includes parts of America and the Western world. Let’s not kid ourselves). I’ve met people who are agoraphobic and claustrophobic and who suffer from anxiety so severe that leaving their circle of comfort is incredibly difficult, but they do it anyway.

I find all of that pretty damn brave.

The problem I have is with the recurring narrative that quitting your job to travel the world is inherently a noble act, when sometimes it just means that you are very, very fortunate. Fortunate to have a strong support system of people who will let you crash with them. Fortunate enough to have a substantial amount of savings to draw from, or parents who will let you use their home as your forwarding address, or fortunate enough to be able to leave for months at a time without worrying about treating chronic illness or paying down your debt.

Fortunate enough to be able to drop everything and live your dreams. To look at your life – at the tender age of 20-something! – and be unhappy with the trajectory you’re on and actually have the means to change it. Too often, that gets confused with bravery.

I actually read an interview with a travel writer whose first piece of advice to those aspiring to do the same thing was, I shit you not, “Pay off your debts.”

REALLY? THANK YOU. I HONESTLY WAS JUST GOING TO LET THAT SUFFOCATING DEBT CONTINUE TO ASPHYXIATE ME (and maybe develop a drug habit, just to add to it), BUT YOUR WISE REVELATION HAS CAUSED ME TO SWITCH GEARS.

What if you can’t pay off your debt? What if you can’t find a job? What if your debts are so extreme because of school or illness or god-knows-what that you can’t just pay it off by skipping a couple Coke Zeros and using your older iPhone for a few years? WHAT THEN?

We don’t ask those questions. We start talking to these people as though their lives and their success is entirely a result of their own adversity and steeliness in the face of fear and the unknown. I know, because I get a lot of these questions. I’ve actually been told I was brave because I decided to quit the rat race to travel the world and live my dream.

LOOK HOW I BRAVELY STUFF MY FACE WITH BEIGNETS. I am basically Joan of Arc.

And after I’ve recovered from my hysterical laughter, I let them know that every single one of their assumptions about me is incorrect.

I am not brave. I am scared of pigeons.

Travel is so not my dream. I barf on swing sets. Can you imagine what plane turbulence does to me?

I quit nothing. I was laid-off.

This blog does not pay the bills. Rand does. Guess how? With a 9-to-definitely-later-than-5 job.

It ignores the profound contributions to my life made by class, race, ethnicity, circumstance, my family, and my incredibly doting and patient husband.

Me, and the wonderful fool who makes all these adventures possible.

When we start equating privilege with bravery, something even worse occurs: we suddenly view the opposite of those acts as complacent, and even cowardly. That staying at a job you hate is somehow ignoble (spoiler: it’s not. If someone works tirelessly at a job they hate in order to support themselves and/or their family, that is pretty damn admirable). Or that not hating your job means that you’ve just bought into some great American lie. That settling down is somehow settling for less.

Years ago, when I actually had a 9-to-5 job, I loved it. When I told people this, I was usually met with incredulity, and occasionally laughed at.

“Bullshit,” someone told me. “You’d quit tomorrow if you could.”

I wouldn’t have, of course. But sometimes it’s hard to convince people that their experiences are not yours.

People often ask me if they should quit their jobs to travel the world. I’m usually dumbfounded, as it’s such an incredibly personal query. I have no idea. I can only cull from my own experiences, at which point the answer is a resounding no. No. Not unless you are in perfect health and have zero debt and extensive savings from which you can support yourself.

If all of those are in place, then maybe, maybe, you should do it. But make no mistake: that act alone doesn’t make you brave. It just makes you very, very lucky.

It actually says that on the bottle. When the doctor told me my instructions for taking the antibiotic, I sincerely did not think that he would have the nerve to relay that information to the pharmacist. I figured he’d use some sort of vague jargon like, “as needed” which is a lovely medical catch-all that can mean anything. If you include “as needed” on a prescription, you can forgo the awkward specificity of having to say things like “when it hurts so much to pee that you’d punch a kitten if it meant you got relief” or how a medication needs to be taken “right after you bumped uglies with your beloved, which, I should note, is how you got into this mess in the first place.”

But the doctor (who is not my regular practitioner, but the only one I could see on short notice. I think he’s primarily a pediatrician, because he refers to urination as “going potty”. Which is really weird when he says things like, “You should make sure to go potty after sex.”) spelled it out this time in all caps right on the damn bottle: POST COITAL. The guy can’t bring himself to say urination, but I guess he was feeling bold that day.

Even my pharmacist, who works in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, and who I consequently assume has seen some shit, started telling me about the medication and stopped cold when she got to that part.

“And, then … um … you should just take it as needed.”

See? “As needed” works everywhere. Also, THE INDICATIONS ON MY PRESCRIPTION ARE SO MORTIFYING THAT THEY EMBARRASSED MY PHARMACIST.

Let’s back up a little, and talk about how I got into this mess.

Actually, nevermind. I just checked with Rand and he has politely asked that I skip the nuanced details of how it happened because he insists that no one wants to read that. (I disagree. I think that there’s a market for semi-erotic non-fiction starring two squishy humans. 50 Shades of Pasty. But I’m respecting his wishes, because sometimes my mom reads this blog.)

The point is, dear friends, that human females are cursed with unreasonably short urethras. How short, you ask? I don’t actually know, because Rand says that my Google search history is already blackmail fodder enough (or would be, if I had a promising career ahead of me in virtually any other field besides blogging).

Biologically speaking, women have much shorter urethras than men, and mine is shorter than average (I think? I don’t actually have anything to base this off of). Normally this hasn’t been a problem, but for the past year or so, I’ve been having urinary tract infections more often than some people go to gym. My doctors (both the normal one and the potty one) don’t understand why, other than to blame the fact that I’m a woman.

Because men do not get urinary tract infections.

The symptoms, in brief:

Intense burning during urination. Like, searing pain, people.

Frequency of urination. I’m talking every 3 minutes.

Stinging pain/irritation when you aren’t actively peeing

The distinct sensation that you might pee your pants at any moment.

Basically it’s like someone’s dancing on your very-full-feeling bladder while taking a hot poker to your tender bits. If the internet has taught me anything, it is that there is probably someone out there who is totally into that sort of thing. I, however, am not.

If you get a UTI, you’re supposed to drink lots of water, because that helps flush out the bacteria, but that means you have to pee even more often, which hurts like hell and … Christ, it’s miserable. My most recent bout has left me unable to leave the house to buy groceries because I can’t be away from the toilet for that long. I manage to hold it long enough to pick up my prescription (the kind people at the drugstore let me use their off-limits-to-the-public bathroom), take my mortifyingly-labeled antibiotic, and wince at the idea that I will be flying to Philadelphia in a few days.

When I get into a Lyft some 36 hours later, I am feeling better, but still rotten. It does not help that the vehicle I get into is filthy. The driver’s trunk is too full of stuff to accommodate my suitcase, so he tells me to cram it into the front seat (pushing away a few discarded food wrappers) while I climb into the back. I have to crack the window because the smell of his car is an overpowering stew of cat urine and stale farts.

“So,” he says, angling back towards me while I lean towards the open window, trying to gulp down air. “You’re a female. Let me ask your opinion on something …”

By the time I get to the airport and have left a 1-star review (“Car smelled terrible and was filthy. Normally not a big deal, but driver was also a bigot.” All of which was true, but for some reason I feel like I’m the one in the wrong by calling him on it), I am in dire need of a toilet. I find one, and thank the heavens that my seat is an aisle.

Right before I’m about to board, though, I get an email. I’ve been upgraded. This is generally a good thing, but my fancy new first class seat is by the window. Which means I can’t get up to pee whenever I need.

On board, I ask the man sitting next to me if he would be kind enough to switch seats. He gives me a pained smile.

“I need the aisle,” he says.

I travel often, so I hear this a lot. Everyone sitting in an aisle seat maintains that they need it. Sometimes, this is true. Like in the case of my friend who had a battle with colon cancer, and who needs to use the lavatory often and with little warning. Ditto for people with infants. Or anyone with prostate issues or bladder problems or those who are presently fighting UTIs. Or people who suffer from anxiety or claustrophobia.

There are lots of medical reasons why you might need the aisle, and it’s stuff that you can’t tell just by looking at someone. I give this man the benefit of the doubt. Because if he needs it as much as I do, he won’t mind getting up, right?

“Okay,” I tell him, “But I just need to warn you. I have a bladder infection, so I’ll need to get up to use the bathroom a lot.”

He instantly switches seats with me.

The only person in earshot who is more shocked by my behavior is me. I am not generally an advocate for myself. But somehow, I’m able to advocate for my poor urethra. The damn thing is mute; if I don’t speak up for it, who exactly will?

I briefly label my neighboring passenger as a saint, but I realize he only does the right thing when pressured to do so, sort of like the U.S. during the WWII. But hell, we still get props for that, so this guy does as well. Thank you, dude who took seat 4A instead of 4C. You are kind of benevolent and awesome when faced with the embarrassing realities of my excretory system. Sort of like Mother Teresa, but for human waste.

I get up six times to use the lavatory during the flight. The guy next to me gets up only once during my constant visits to the toilet, in order to retrieve something from his bag. I think we both conclude this arrangement was mutually beneficial.

Once we land, I stand up and another passenger offers to help me with my bag. Actually, he doesn’t offer. He sort of sighs, and assumes that I’ll need his help, and he’s annoyed by my non-existent request. As though I’ve already proven myself to be difficult by asking someone else to swap seats with me. I feel like I should apologize, even though I’ve asked him for nothing.

“I guess I’ll need to help you get your bag down.”

“Oh, no,” I say, “I’ve got it.”

We have this exchange a few more times, as he refuses to believe I can get my bag down alone (odd, since I put it up there by myself without struggle), and though I’ve insisted I’m fine, he clearly doesn’t believe me.

“Well, I guess that guy can help you,” he says, exasperated, gesturing to a guy a few rows back.

Wait, I’m so incapable of this, we’re pulling other strangers in?

“I’VE GOT IT,” I say.

And let me be clear: if I need help, and you offer, that’s great. Or if you offer help without solicitation, that’s lovely, too. But when I tell you I am fine, because I have just survived a 5-hour flight with a flaming urethra, preceded by a car ride which imbued my clothing with a lingering stench best described as “used condom potpourri” while the driver addressed me as a female, all while I was wearing three-inch what-was-I-thinking heels, THEN YOU HAD BETTER BELIEVE I AM FINE.

I grab my suitcase, and he stares at me, warily, as I move it down to the ground effortlessly, without bumping into anyone, not even with my arm or elbow. I don’t even graze the top of the seats.

“See? I get to put all those cross training classes to good use,” I say playfully. He looks – there is no other word for it – utterly disgusted with me. And I want to scream at him for being a dick, but somehow, I just feel worse about myself. Which is weird, because I’ve clearly demonstrated that I’m a badass.

This is the weird thing that people don’t tell you about feminism: a lot of times, it doesn’t actually feel empowering, because you aren’t always surrounded with like-minded people. You just feel like you’re being difficult, or complaining too much, or being bitchy, all because you want people to stop being shitty to you and you happen to have a vagina.

When I finally step off the plane, Rand is there. He has flown in from Florida, and so I find him waiting for me at the gate, the sort of romantic gesture that died with the rise of terrorism and the restrictive policies of the TSA. Plaid-shirted, with hair that defies gravity and a smile that is so sincere, it would break your heart.

One of these people is a proud feminist online and off. And, well … I’m trying to be.

And I start thinking maybe he’s not such a fool after all. I mean, at least not for that last thing.

When I tell him about my day, he tells me he is proud of me. He knows that I have trouble standing up for myself on platforms that aren’t this blog, because I end up feeling like I’m being a dick. And I just want people to like me.

And then I realize that he does. He really does. And that’s way more important that making a good impression on a bunch of antiquated jerks.

I want to hug him. And kiss him. And possibly tackle him on a hotel bed. Them I’m reminded of the bottle of antibiotics in my purse, with its all too specific label, and sigh.

I vow to try and be a dick more, if that’s what it takes. I figure it’s the next best thing to having one.

]]>http://www.everywhereist.com/standing-up-for-yourself-as-a-woman-sometimes-means-being-a-dick/feed/20Dante’s 10th Circle of Hell Is Yoga Sculpthttp://www.everywhereist.com/dantes-10th-circle-of-hell-is-yoga-sculpt/
http://www.everywhereist.com/dantes-10th-circle-of-hell-is-yoga-sculpt/#commentsTue, 12 Jan 2016 23:13:20 +0000http://www.everywhereist.com/?p=13536I don’t like horror movies. I think it’s because I don’t find violence or death to be that entertaining. I’m not trying to be holier-than-thou – I just really, really dislike being scared.

Vietnam, Summer 2014. A reminder that things start out fine. They always start out fine.

It’s probably because I’m scared all the time, anyway (it’s a byproduct of my anxiety. Basically, any time I’m alone and anything happens, I freak out). So when I see people paying for the privilege of being scared out of their minds, I am incredibly confused, and also start wondering if people would pay for the VR-experience of being Geraldine. I once had a panic attack because of a Boston Terrier. A Boston Terrier. IT’S BASICALLY THE YODA OF THE DOG WORLD AND I WAS SO SCARED I COULDN’T BREATHE. There has to be money in that, right?

The part that I hate most about horror movies (confession: I’ve only seen about three in my life, each indelibly etched into my memory, despite attempts to obscure the images with my own hands or block out noise with the sound of my own whimpering) is the inevitability of it all. You find yourself screaming at the protagonist to do absolutely anything besides what they are presently doing. But there’s no way around it. They’re going to get bludgeoned to death, or they’ll accidentally eat their friend, or they’ll be somehow forced to cut off their own extremities or OH GOD I JUST SWEATED THROUGH MY SHIRT THINKING ABOUT IT.

This is why I’m constantly self-medicating with dessert, people. This shit right here.

I bring up horror movies because they dovetail perfectly into the experience I had at a yoga class I took over the holidays. Things began peacefully and idyllically, and then slowly began to go awry, and my inner monologue began screaming that I really needed to get out immediately but instead I mini-puked onto my rented towel.

As usual, I am hesitant to blame myself, because doing that only leads to introspection and self-growth and no one needs that. Instead, I blame the good folks at the CorePower Yoga.

This is how they describe the class that I signed up for two days before Christmas Day:

When muscle meets yoga, Sculpt is born. Boost metabolism and build lean muscle mass as you move to upbeat tracks. You’ll combine free weights with CorePower Yoga 2 (C2) sequencing and cardio to intensify each pose while mixing in strength-training moves like squats, lunges and bicep curls. It is recommended that you take at least one CorePower level 1 or 2 (C1 or C2) class before a Yoga Sculpt class.

Notice that the phrase: “hotter and wetter than Satan’s lower intestine” is conspicuously absent. I’ve decided that Mark Twain was wrong: there are lies, damn lies, and CorePower Yoga Class Descriptions.

Now, contrary to the Grimace-from-McDonald’s-like physique that I have rocked for the last decade or so, I tend to work out fairly regularly. I do pilates, circuit-training, plyometrics, and TRX, which I’m pretty sure is just a repurposed pre-Industrial Revolution cow harness. Once a week I take a class called Insanity, in which I flail around like I’m being chased by a swarm of invisible bees.

The point is, I’m pretty good at making it to the end of a class without barfing. (Sorry if it sounds like I’m bragging here.)

So I figured that a class which is basically billed as yoga plus weights might be fun and even a little bit relaxing. You know, like how that couple at the beginning of a slasher flick feels as they drive to the secluded cabin they’ve rented for the weekend, not realizing that they’re going to serve as an Old Country Buffet for flesh-eating mutants by Saturday evening.

I arrived early, ignoring the smell of fungus and humanity that imbued my rented yoga mat, and sat down. I had gotten a towel as well, after the woman at the front desk had said, “Oh, you’re going to need one.” I should have realized this portended something ominous, but I’ve read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy too many times to regard a towel as anything but a good idea.

This would eventually be proven true, for reasons I had yet to anticipate.

As more students filtered into class, I noticed two things: they were all chiseled, with sharp corners where their bones jutted into their skin, no padded layer of subcutaneous fat separating their skeletons from their lululemons (which everyone wore, men included, except for me). And they were laying their towels over their yoga mats, the way that I did during those strange hellish years when I thought Bikram was a good idea.

These should have been warning signs – the first two horsemen of the Yoga Sculpt Apocalypse – but I somehow ignored them (the other two would soon follow – a pastel colored iPod pre-loaded with the music of Katy Perry; a peppy 20-something instructor named Becca – but by then it was too late).

The class began slowly, with a few stretches and sun salutations, and I remember thinking how nice it was before Becca (was that her name? Does it even matter?) lost her mind and we all followed her over the edge of that cliff and into the abyss. Her movements became quicker, and I began flashing back to that one time I accidentally ended up in a class called “Cardio Kickboxing” (in my defense, I had just had brain surgery a few weeks earlier).

And then the heat kicked on.

Granted, it was already warm in a room packed to the brim with cut, tanned Southern Californians. And we were frantically moving about like live mice had been dropped down the backs of our shirts, an impossibility for many reasons, including the fact that many people were topless. And now the heater was blasting to life, turning the room into a sauna, as the windows and mirrors became foggy with moisture.

I tried to breathe, an effort which produced an affect akin to trying to inhale a damp sock. As I grew dizzier, my movements became more erratic. I slipped a few times, tried to offer up a cheesy self-deprecating grin at my own clumsiness, but no one saw or cared. There was no camaraderie here. It was jump squat or be killed.

“Are we having fun?” the instructor screamed.

“WHOOOoooOOO!” came a raucous reply. This is how Stockholm Syndrome takes hold.

I tried to think of Stockholm. Cold, pristine Stockholm. It didn’t work. This was the armpit of hell. I checked the clock. 16 minutes. I’d been in class for 16 minutes.

“JUMPING JACKS!” Becca screamed, with the subtlety of a Muppet on cocaine.

In hindsight, I am still not entirely clear on what happened next. But the word “bladder” comes to mind, as does the phrase “completely lost control of”.

I’m pretty sure I peed on myself at that point, and I still didn’t leave class. I feel an odd measure of pride in this fact, which I’m not entirely sure is the right emotion. And yet, there it is.

I was reminded of the time in Vietnam that my entire water bottle leaked onto the crotch of my pants, a half liter of liquid in total, and I, so hot and sweaty and uncomfortable already, realized nothing.

Nicci, bless her, captured the moment on camera.

THIS WAS THE GROSSEST I HAD EVER FELT. Until Yoga Sculpt.

Becca’s shouts brought me back to the present. She’d begun gyrating side to side, a high-speed mimicry of the mating dance of some insect I am unfamiliar with. Realizing that I might pass out (and that if I did, those attending to me would note the saturation of my pants), I moved into child’s pose while surreptitiously checking the clock.

I’d been in class for 18 minutes.

After that, it was kind of a bodily fluid free-for-all. I knelt there, forehead against the ground, while the sweat of the people around me fell onto my back like an unholy rain.

My only response to this sickening precipitation was to barf a little onto my rented towel. I stayed there for most of the rest of class, rejoining only near the end, in some pitiful pretense that I’d been participating all along and had not, in fact, spent the majority of the time semi-conscious and leaking from various orifices. There was only one other person who had curled up on her towel, praying for either death or Gatorade (whichever was easier). Everyone else had frolicked like demented insects on a hot skillet until the very end.

“Is this your first class?” the angular gentleman next to me asked when it ended. I stared at him in disbelief. How could it be anything but my first class? It was like asking Marie Antoinette if it was her first beheading.

“JOAN OF ARC WENT TO THE FIRE BUT ONCE, FOOL,” I wanted to scream, but instead nodded mutely. We had no secrets. I was coated in his sweat as much as my own.

“Hey, you did pretty good for your first class!” I’d have punched him for his slightly condescending encouragement but I’d lost control of my extremities a good 40 minutes before.

Wobbly-legged, I headed out. I was so soaked with bodily fluids that I had to place various pieces of paper and clothing on the car seat so as not to saturate it.

I would have cried, but my body had no moisture left.

The class was many things. Horror film. Masochism. Heated cardio barfing. But yoga? No. It was not that.

Last month, some dear friends gave Rand and me Fitbits. If you are unfamiliar with the product, it’s sort of like a pedometer, but more judgmental. It keeps track of the steps you’ve taken, your heart rate, calories burned, and whether or not you’ve called your mother recently. Mostly, it exists to make you feel badly about exercising your constitutional right to not exercise.

It also lets you connect with your friends to see who has taken more steps over the course of a day or week, should you need yet another metric by which to feel inadequate in life.

We thanked our friends for their largess, and gleefully slapped the devices on our wrists, not realizing the hell we were about to unleash on ourselves.

And I want to be very clear to those two friends that I appreciate their generosity (the Fitbits are merely the most recent entry in a history of gift-giving, kind gestures, and support) and love them dearly. Also, they are ruining my life and I hate them. Which, oddly, is a very similar feeling I have towards most members of my family, and I really should make a note to discuss that with my therapist.

But I digress. And that, sadly, does not burn calories.

My foray into the madness of Fitbit began slowly. We do not lose our minds all at once but over a series of steps which carry us to the brink of insanity. Forget about being driven mad – I assure you, it can all be done on foot. The first day I wore the device I found myself constantly checking it to see how many steps I’d taken. The Organization for Making You Feel Like Shit About Your Health Choices recommends that you take at least 10,000 steps a day, and also that you stop spreading frosting on everything. Given that I spend most of my day on my feet, and that I walk virtually everywhere in my neighborhood, I assumed that I’d reach that goal after only a few hours (I left the eradication of frosting from my diet for another day, as I didn’t want to shock my system too much. I already take multi-vitamins. There’s no need to go full Gwyneth Paltrow, am I right?)

Here’s the thing: 10,000 is a staggering number. I found that I could reach it on days that I did a three mile run (which I have been known to do on occasion, and not necessarily while in pursuit of an ice cream truck), but that my circuit training classes, despite prompting me to do Google searches like “likelihood of death by burpees” only amassed a few hundred steps over the course of an hour.

I soon found that there was no limit to the things I was willing to do to appease the tiny robot on my arm. Here are some signs that you might be suffering from Fitbit-induced insanity. You may be afflicted with one, or all of them, at any point after you strap that little rubber shackle to your wrist. You’ve been warned.

—————

March Madness

In my younger years I remember visiting the zoo and seeing an enclosure in which a possum was racing around non-stop, seemingly with purpose yet going nowhere, like Kate Hudson’s career in the mid-00s. I thought the scene was rather hilarious until a sage adult explained to me that its behavior was a sort of neurosis born from being in captivity, or from having to wear Uggs with shorts.

I once took a cross-country flight where this was the only movie playing, back-to-back. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

This is not unlike what happens in my home on evenings when I have not reached my prerequisite steps. I will race around my living room, march in place, or attempt to attach my Fitbit to the neighborhood cat/dog/hobo in hopes of attaining my goal. Late one night during a recent trip, I found I had reached 18k steps and decided to shoot for 20k without leaving our hotel room. I paced around like a caged animal, fully convinced that this was how the robots took over in Terminator, but refusing to stop because when you reach 20k Fitbit gives you a little badge. Not a real badge, mind you, but an image of a badge that means absolutely nothing.

Congratulations! You’ve achieved nothing.

15 minutes later, I’d attained my useless goal and the only thing I had to show for it was a pair of sweaty pajamas and the growing suspicion that life is meaningless.

—————

I Would Walk 500 Miles … Just to Beat Your Ass

Unless we’re discussing acceptable movie theater candy, my husband and I tend to get along pretty great. But the second we put on our rubber wristbands, we started to become ruthlessly competitive, like candidates for presidency or contestants on The Bachelorette. One on evening, Rand announced he was going for a walk.

“Wait up! I want to go with you.”

“NO!”

Cue two hours of fighting. Make-up sex involved both of us checking our heart rate to see who had burned more calories.

—————

Intense Hatred for All Your Stupid Active, Healthy Friends

Especially those jerks who live in New York City who think they’re better than you because they walk everywhere. USE THE SUBWAY, ASSHOLES.

—————

Self-Loathing Is the New Black

I have failed at everything.

I’ve been fighting a vicious cold over the last two days (which can be traced back to last weekend, when my mother sneezed all over me without even bothering to cover her mouth. I assume this is payback for me squirming out of her womb 35 years ago. She swears she doesn’t hold a grudge, but her actions suggest otherwise. Ahem.) which means that my grand total of steps has been about what you’d expect from Jabba the Hutt on Thanksgiving weekend. Rather than acknowledge the fact that my body needs time to fight my sickness, I’ve spent the last few days cursing myself and occasionally crying, realizing that no amount of neti-pot rinses can wash away the sense of failure that comes with being mortal.

—————

If You Eat Food, You’re Fucked

But Geraldine, you’re thinking, don’t all of these extra steps mean you are getting into shape?

Ah, one would think so, wouldn’t they? And yet the human body is basically like that weird space between your back molars: it holds on to food whether you want it to or not. The delta of calories burned on a very active day versus a very inactive one is virtually nil. Despite walking everywhere like a peasant I’ve found that I’ve only burned a paltry few calories more than if I had stayed at home and mashed York peppermint patties into my mouth while watching TV.

And guess which activity would have brought me more joy. Guess.

—————

Still, despite all my whining and the firm conviction that this is how robots will succeed in enslaving humanity, I dig my little device. There are so many unknown numbers out there. I have no idea how many times my husband and I have kissed, no clue as to the number of times I’ve uttered the F-word in my lifetime. But now I know how many steps I’ve taken on a given day and how many miles I’ve walked. And yes, every one might take me closer and closer to Crazytown, but let’s be honest: I was probably heading in that direction all along.

—————

P.S. – Thanks, guys, for the gift. No, seriously, thanks.

P.P.S. – I’m not being sarcastic. Really. I know it seems like I am, but I’m not.

]]>http://www.everywhereist.com/how-my-fitbit-made-me-lose-my-mind/feed/14An Open Letter to My Lady Bitshttp://www.everywhereist.com/an-open-letter-to-my-lady-bits/
http://www.everywhereist.com/an-open-letter-to-my-lady-bits/#commentsTue, 06 Oct 2015 18:29:29 +0000http://www.everywhereist.com/?p=13264A word of warning to my dear, loyal readers who keep coming back here (presumably because of some sort of court-ordered mandate that I don’t really understand): this entire post is about my lady bits.

I’m utterly serious. It is not even remotely about travel. If you come back tomorrow, there might be a post about how we visited Shakespeare’s grave. Or I might just rant about cake and vaginas. It’s hard to say, really.

————–

An Open Letter to the Sarlac Pit that Is My Genitalia (admittedly, this title is a bit wordy, but who needs brevity when we’re talking about reproductive organs?)

Hi, everyone! How’s it going down there? (Or inthere, if we’re talking about my ovaries. Or wherever the hell you may be, because I still am not too clear on that, if we’re talking about the clitoris).

Ahem.

I realize that the title of this post might not jibe well with many of you, but consider the alternatives:

The House at Pooh Corner (“I think you should delete that one.” – my husband)

Considering all that, what I went with is tame, no?

Anyway, I figured it’s time we had a talk. After all, we’ve been together now for 35 years – more than the combined ages of everyone in One Direction – yet we rarely speak, aside from an occasional “Oh, Jesus, what the hell?” from me, and those weird sounds you make during yoga. You know to what I am referring. I usually have to cough to cover up the noise.

Here’s the thing: after three and a half decades together, I sort of figured I would understand you by now. But at least three times during any given month, you do something that freaks me out and has me doing incognito searches on Google that generally follow the following format:

“Is ________ normal?”

And while the internet assures me that for the most part, the answer is yes, and that there is even a fringe section of humanity that is super into it, I remain unconvinced. There are a few topics that I feel we should discuss. I’ve separated them into easy-to-navigate-headings below, taking into account the fact that you are my reproductive organs and (as my teen years so painfully attested) entirely devoid of higher cognitive functions.

——————–

My Period

I’m not gonna lie: I sort of thought the horrific deluge of blood would slow down after high school. Remember those days? When you guys, in cahoots with my hormones, took over body like a horde of pirates?

And then you steered me straight into crazy island, where I remained for a decade?

Those were strange, confusing times. I’m pretty sure you guys were just messing with me, having my period show up whenever the hell you felt like it and lasting for weeks on end, like a farewell tour for a band that never died, because presumably the afterlife doesn’t have heroin or sex with groupies.

I kept thinking that those days were behind us, but after more than twenty years of menstruating, you still seem to not understand “regularity”. Some days I’ll expect a light little flow (because I’ve had my period for just kill me now number of days), so I’ll wear a pantyliner, and be met with a deluge that makes me want to build an arc and start rounding up animals two-by-two.

Other times I’ll wear a maxi pad designed to double as a flotation device in the event of a water landing, and you will mock me with nary a trickle …

… until I change into a pantyliner, at which point the aforementioned deluge will recommence.

According to the internet, I can expect my period to start “tapering off” in my mid-thirties, something which, after years of reenacting the prom queen scene from Carrie, I’m sort of starting to look forward to.

But this doesn’t seem to be happening. You’ve decided that I still need to uncover a slasher film in my underwear every few weeks to remind me that I’m not pregnant, even though at this point, a simple text message would suffice.

——————–

Acne

I know this is your fault. Stop pretending it’s not. (Ditto for those random chest hairs that pop up every month or so that need to be plucked immediately or I will play with them. And by “random chest hairs” I mean that it looks like I’m a burlesque dancer doing a caveman-themed set.)

I have spent the last twenty years being told “I will grow out of it.” In that time, the only things I have grown out of are my favorite jeans, and the long held belief that I would one day get a chance to make out with Jeff Goldblum. But if pressed on either of those points I’ll confess: I’m secretly hanging on to both.

(YES YOU ARE, JEFF.)

But back to the acne (which, incidentally, I occasionally get on my back, too). Biologically speaking, this makes no sense. I have a prescription for BIFOCALS. I’ve been known to eat licorice all-sorts, which no one under the age of 90 voluntarily does. Do I really need to have my face freak out at random intervals like it did when I was 16? Does this serve any purpose whatsoever besides to let me know that my period is coming? Because I already have an app on my phone, and a subtle desire to “eat all the food, ever” that tells me that.

——————–

Cramps

When I was 19 or so, my aunt affectionately explained to me that my cramps were just a result of my uterus contracting in order to shed its inner lining. I vividly remember her wringing out her hands to describe the process. I got it. This bullshit has to happen.

What I did not realize, because it makes absolutely zero sense from an evolutionary standpoint, and even less from a non-evolutionary standpoint (best I could come up with: “God hates you”), is that I would also get a pain in the middle of my cycle, which the Germans have a word for, BECAUSE THEY HAVE A WORD FOR EVERYTHING.

The word is “mittelschmertz”, which means, rather cleverly, “middle pain”. Why I need my body to cramp in pain in order to alert me to the fact that it’s not menstruating is beyond me. I know I’m not menstruating because I can shower without reenacting that scene from Psycho. I do not need a kick in my gut from the inside to tell me that.

——————–

Random Discharge Whenever the Hell You Feel Like It

I wasn’t trying to be gratuitous. I’m just really craving pancakes.

I swear to god, if any other part of the human body expectorated like this, we’d have gone extinct as a species thousands of years ago. Because horrifying, mucus-y secretions coming out of literally anywhere else would get us cast out of our cozy little hunter-gatherer societies before we could say “Ooohrak” (in this scenario, I’m assuming language had yet to really develop) for fear of contagion. Fortunately for humanity, you’ve decided to have things glob out of a place that is basically a grab-bag for secretions, so that everyone has gotten pretty used to it (and we aren’t left in the woods to die alone. Hooray.) Instead, we drive to Costco and buy pantyliners in bulk, and if anyone questions it, we tell them it’s for work.

——————–

Babies

Full disclosure: I do not have children, and some part of that is because I’ve heard rumors of where they come out (and that’s in a best case scenario. Another option is to burst open like a pinata into which someone shoved an M-80. I assume. I’ve never been good at biology). But plenty of my friends have kids, and they have told me stories which often involve the term “prolapsed” followed by any number of vital body parts.

And forgive me, but that seems like utter bullshit. Your organs see the baby making its escape so they all decide to make a break for it, too? Not cool. I realize that you aren’t the architect of the Winchester Mansion that is the female body, but I feel like you should account for it.

(Also, word to all the mothers out there, whether you came into motherhood by the above means or otherwise.)

——————–

And yet, even though I’ve listed my complaints in excruciating, gif-enhanced detail, complete with sub-headings, that’s not entirely the point of this missive. Because in spite of all the (figurative crap) that you put me through, I literally wouldn’t be who I am without you. That even on days when you make my yoga pants smell like chicken noodle soup, I realize how lucky I am to have everything where its supposed to be and in proper working order (mostly). There are women who are struggling with all of that; hell, some are just fighting for the right to be recognized as women. And female genital mutilation remains a rampant problem in large parts of the world (Nigeria, one of the places in the world where FGM is most prevalent, just agreed to ban it in July. Three months ago.)

So I guess what I’m saying is that I am, ultimately, really happy that you’re around, safe, healthy, and whole. Because even though there are days when I’m fairly certain that you are part of a marketing ploy to sell the vaginal equivalent of breath mints, I’m grateful for you.

Plus, we have a lot of fun together.

After 35 years, I figured it was time I say thanks.

Sincerely,

Me

P.S. – Thank you for all the concerned emails. I actually know where the clitoris is.

Like, he’s actually the front-runner. That is a fact. There’s something like 28 people vying to be the Republican nominee (it’s starting to look like some weird, post-apocalyptic version of Hollywood Squares), and the two at the head of the pack are THE DONALD AND HIS HAIR.

According to Twitterverse, he’s done absolutely nothing to prepare for tonight:

Reports out of camp Trump say he has done no formal debate prep sessions, had no mock Q & A, and conducted no practice debates.

I’m not going to lie: that is one of the best things I’ve ever heard. Naturally, I’m going to be glued to my television.

But, Geraldine, you’re thinking, why just watch the Republican Party go up in hairspray-fueled flames, when you can watch the Republican Party go up in hairspray-fueled flames WHILE YOU ARE DRUNK?

Pope for President.

And you, dear reader, are absolutely right. I’m fairly sure it’s written in the constitution that it is our duty as Americans to get absolutely shit-faced while watching D-level celebrities screaming about all the things they will do when they are King of America. Or, at least, it will be after Trump is elected Commander-in-Douche.

In my infinite spare time (because I’ve been unemployed since forever. THANKS A LOT, OBAMA), I’ve devised a way for all of us to get good and sloshed while watching the “debates.” Enjoy.

The Donald Trump Presidential Debate Drinking Game

(Note: I recommend starting with something that has a low alcohol level, like wine or beer. If you go straight for vodka, you will be incoherently drunk by the first commercial break.)

Rules of Play:

Any time Trump puts an article before the name of an ethnic/underrepresented/historically oppressed or marginalized group (e.g., “The Jews,” “Those feminists”, “The Mexicans”), take a drink. You are exempt from doing so if you are part of said group.–

Take a sip any time Trump mentions his friend Carl, who he will send to “deal with China” (despite the fact that Carl has absolutely no international diplomatic experience, and China is a country of 1.4 billion people, and not a petulant toddler). If your name is Carl, you must leave the room until someone yells “EMBARGO OVER” and lets you return.–

If someone talks over Trump, on screen or in your home, you must all scream, “NEVER INTERRUPT THE DONALD.” Last person to do so must take a sip.

Take a sip any time Trump displays a clear misunderstanding of parliamentary procedure, the electoral system, or which actions necessitate congressional approval.–

If Trump tells anyone to “shut up”, you must all remain silent until the next question or commercial break. If someone accidentally speaks before then, they must take a drink.–

If at any point Trump cusses, you must either take a drink or cuss.–

If any of the following occur – any mention of Trump’s hair, Trump touching his own mane, the camera zooming in on the gold nest that sits atop his head – you must scream “HAIR TO THE CHIEF!” Last person to do so must take a drink.

Atta girl, Hil.

If the phrase “The Donald” is used at any time, you must chug the rest of your drink.–

If Trump use the phrase “It’s time to tell those idiots in Washington that they’re fired!” then we’ve all won. Or lost. Whatever.–